Leon Cooperman Talks Sprint and SandRidge

Hedge-fun honcho Leon Cooperman, the founder of Omega Advisors, said he is still finding pockets of value in equities, despite the broader stock market becoming fairly valued.

Speaking at the Invest for Kids conference in Chicago, Mr. Cooperman listed four names for investors, including SandRidge Energy Inc. and Sprint Corp. where he lauded its new majority owner SoftBank and its leader Masayoshi Son. Mr. Cooperman said he had originally bought into Sprint around $2 a share and tendered into the SoftBank deal at $7.48 a share. He has been rebuilding a Sprint stake, betting Mr. Son will challenge the duopoly of wireless carriers in the U.S.

“Look at the magic Masayoshi Son has created,” Mr. Cooperman said. “With everything he has touched he has shown a tremendous ability.”

Energy company SandRidge was another buy for Mr. Cooperman. He pointed to the turnaround the company has been going on since other hedge funds won a proxy fight. Those other hedge funds included Dinakar Singh of TPG-Axon, who is speaking later at the conference.

Mr. Cooperman also recommended Atlas Energy for its dividends and London-based mobile-wallet company Monitise Group, where he says he is buying because Visa’s Europe division has touted it.

While Mr. Cooperman said stocks are becoming fully priced, he said for most part the equity markets had not become overly exuberant

“I’m not a bear and I’m not afraid to be bearish, but I’d say that typically a bear market is caused by recession,” he said. “Bull markets don’t die from old age.”

Mr. Cooperman did, however, take a shot at one high-flying stock: listing Tesla as one of the stocks that may be overpriced.

“Tesla with half the market cap of General Motors, I think we all know how that is going to end,” he said.